1. WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS

1.1 The co-chairs welcomed members and guests from HMRC and Northern Ireland. Apologies were received from members who were not able to attend.

2. MINUTES AND ACTIONS

2.1 The Minutes from the last Forum were agreed. All actions had been completed.

3. GUIDANCE ON REASONABLE LINES OF ENQUIRY AND DIGITAL DATA

3.1 Two documents were discussed.

- A Guide to ‘Reasonable Lines of Enquiry’, a draft guidance for prosecutors on their duties under the CPIA.
- Advice on Communications Evidence, which had been finalised and circulated to prosecutors at the start of the year.

Once “A Guide to ‘Reasonable Lines of Enquiry’” was finalised the two documents should be read in conjunction. The Forum agreed that the draft guidance was useful in setting out the stages of device interrogation.

3.2 It was confirmed that the AGO review would be considering whether the CPIA remained fit for purpose. 3.3 The Forum took the view that earlier engagement between police and defence was required pre-charge and would assist officers in following reasonable lines of enquiry post interview and pre-charge. It was decided that the issue should be progressed outside the Forum by discussion between police and Criminal Law Committee representatives.

4. TRAINING

4.1 The NCA has revised the Advanced Disclosure Course. The Course has a pass/fail test at the end. A CPS prosecutor attended a pilot of the Course and provided positive feedback. The final training package is expected to be ready by the end of June. The NCA were happy to share the package for others to adapt for use with their own organisations.

4.2 There was an update on training developed by the College of Policing, launched on 23 April 2018 as part of NDIP. The College of Policing have embarked on training three tiers of Champions within each force, with the focus on maintaining the relevance of training.

5. AOB

5.1 There was a discussion on retrieving data from complainants’ electronic devices with their consent and on the boundaries of interception when retrieving data stored on “the cloud.” It was noted that there was a lack of consistency amongst police forces in defining and recording consent. The topic will return to the Forum once work on it has progressed.

5.2 The DMD pilot is expected to be extended from its original end date in June in order to get more meaningful results.